To the editor: I am a third generation South Bay resident. My father was raised in the second. His father worked for standard oil for years, and my father and my uncles worked in summer jobs in the refinery. The standard oil, now Chevron, seemed to have been a member of the responsible community.
I grew up a block of Rosecrans Ave. by Standard Oil. One of my previous childhood memories was the time ray that hit an oil storage tank through Rosecrans. That burned fire for days, the burning tank throws black smoke and soot.
How much pulmonary damage caused that to residents, particularly the children and the elderly? But not many questioned the damage to the standard oil of the community that could have been causing in the 1960s.
However, last week, as we listened, we felt and saw what seemed to be a scary precursor of the apocalypse of our house seven blocks away, the question of the possible damage and risk of an important oil producer located between the residential communities and the Los Angeles International Airport became more urgent (“'I thought we put ourselves or something.' October 3). We were lucky that the winds were soft and blew from the ocean, since I fear that it could have happened if the winds were out of the east.
However, after reading an article by Los Angeles Times about the explosion that listed the many Chevron infractions to which our communities have been exposed in recent years (“The refinery The second of Chevron has a history of security and environmental violations.” October 4), I question the security of allowing the main refineries to remain in highly populated areas, especially when it seems that the refineries obtain very little more than a wrist palmated despite the potential dangers of the incidents.
This is not a political problem. This is a problem of health and safety of the surrounding population. Refineries or other dangerous industries should not be able to operate in a way that can cause harm to others.
Difficult questions about the cause and solutions should be asked. If the federal government dodges this central duty, the State must intervene. Refineries should not receive a blank check.
Kathryn Gray, Manhattan Beach
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To the editor: While the strictest security protocols are, of course, a necessity, the residents of El Segundo and Manhattan Beach only have to live with the fact that a fuel refinery is a volatile place that even the most intricate regulations cannot completely mitigate (“The second was born by oil. The fire of mass refinery leaves residents shaking,” October 3).
As a long -time resident of Manhattan Beach who lives half a mile of the refinery, I still remember what happened in September 1968. Rayo hit a large surface oil storage tank in the installation (then standard oil), which caused the oil to be turned on in an explosion and fire. Firefighters wore water and foam in vain, so they decided to let it burn. The exhaustion lasted 13 days, during which the high flames and the day became the thick black smoke at night.
This was a strange act of nature that no security rule could have avoided. For us who live near the refinery, it is part of the deal, but I never wanted to live anywhere else.
Pete Skacan, Manhattan Beach
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To the editor: If state legislators needed a sign that their Petroleum drilling of invoices impulse To appease the refineries, it was not advised, they obtained it on Thursday night on Thursday night in the form of high flames.
The explosion and hell were At least the fifth fire In the refinery the second of Chevron since 2016, part of a long history of refinery incidents in California.
Communities know very well, but legislators seem to have forgotten that oil and gas production is disastrous for people's health, the environment and the economy. Even when air quality officials reported picos of dangerous chemicals of the fire, economists warned that gasoline prices would increase.
Every time our leaders cave to the volatile and dangerous industry of fossil fuels, Californians suffer from it. It is time to accelerate the transition to clean energy and get out of oil and gas forever.
Christina Scaringe, Sacramento
This writer is director of Climate Policy of California at the Center for Biological Diversity.
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To the editor: I grew up in Manhattan Beach in the 1950s. I lived just a few miles from the Chevron Refinery in the second. Even then, our nickname for the second was “El Stinko.” Over the years, they had some large fires and many bad smells. Unfortunately, nothing new here.
Mike Reardon, Fallbrook
